~ On stories, old and new

Monthly Archives: October 2012

I checked out the webcomic today. It deals with creation myths and deities walking among men. I almost gave up on it early on to be honest. The format of the comic seems to be geared towards paper rather than the web in one long fullpage panel, so I have to scroll down to see the whole image and it is hard to keep all the parts on the screen that seem relevant at the same time. I tried shrinking it down so that I wouldn’t have to scroll, but there’s limits to how much I can do it without making the text unreadable.

Still, it has grown on me as I read through it. The storytelling seems to have a pretty leisurely pace and includes oral storytelling. The pacing is part of why I found it harder to get into at the beginning because it does involve going through quite a few pages before finding out enough of the story to get interested in it, but after reading far enough to see the story unfolding, I think it is worthwhile. It also includes quite a few girlpower themes that I find appealing. And the God of Fire is adorable in a way that I have never seen anyone do with a god of fire before. How is that for giving some reasons to read without being totally spoilerific?

In one of our less brilliant plans, my partner and I were leaving our drive homeimmediately after leaving last night. On paper, the park closed at 8pm, a six hour drive would put us in at 2 am, no problem. In reality we were in line when the park closed, stopped at a gift shop on the way out, walked back to where our car was parked, and were ready to leave a bit after 10 pm. This still would not have been a problem if it were the drive to start a trip, but not after a three day endurance run of open-to-close Disney parks. We were taking turns napping enough to get us through the drive.

When I was napping, I started talking in my sleep, and my partner responded. I woke up aware that the exchange took place and aware of the dreams, but couldn’t remember quite what was said. My husband remembered quite well, though.

The first time, I told him that frosting would taste terrible on hot dogs. He agreed.

The second time, I informed him that we really should have checked to make sure we had ground beef before we started making the tacos. He asked me not to cook tacos in the car anymore. Maybe it is a very good thing that we were no longer in the place where dreams come true.

I was working with a young man who has autism today. He was upset because for logistical reasons, we had to ask him to leave his room and his video games and come with us to the office on an errand. He was extremely upset about it, saying that he didn’t want to go to the office because it was boring. Unfortunately, he didn’t really have a choice in the matter, and eventually he agreed to come with us. Part of his treatment program is getting him to interact with other people in a socially appropriate fashion, but he would much prefer to play video games in his room all day, every day.

I thought about it for a while, and wondered if he might want to meet a few of my friends that make video games for a living. It seems like if there was anything that may make him interested in talking to someone it might be that. I asked him if he would be interested and he said he didn’t want to. He already had to go one place today and he was not leaving the house again. I explained that it wouldn’t be today: I would need time to contact my friends who make video games, but that if he was interested we could set it up for sometime in the future, like Saturday.

He explained to me that the future didn’t really exist, and that it was all crystal balls and guessing. I told him I was pretty sure that Saturday was going to come and we could make plans for it. He reiterated that there was no future, there was only the things we do now to create the past. I tried a few different avenues, like pointing out other plans he had in the next few weeks were also in the future, and that it was possible to make plans like these. He explained his position a few different ways too in order to help me understand his perspective, but the words “no future, no future” over and over again in different ways seemed so bleak to me.

Maybe they are bleak for someone who doesn’t have much control over his life. Living the way that he does, I could see that he may not feel he has a lot to look forward to. Many times plans end up getting readjusted, changed or cancelled on account of money issues, gas issues, staffing issues, trips getting cancelled because someone goes to ER, or someone throwing a fit. Maybe the sheer unpredictability of it seems like it isn’t something worth planning for only to have plans get ruined. But that isn’t consistent with the way he explained his perspective.

Many of us emphasize building a future, making our lives better, and sometimes making ourselves miserable when things fall through and the future looks bleak. I’ve experienced that a lot in this economy. Yet many meditation and therapies try to get people refocused into the now rather than planning for the future or ruminating over the past. His perspective was that people should do the things right now in order to build their past. I think it is a point worth pondering in further detail about what the implications of that belief are. Call it a character building exercise.